


I Found

by proudspires



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: Angst, Because Me Too, F!Moon, F/M, Guzma/F!Moon, Guzma/Moon - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Like How I Bent Time Last Time, Some Time Bending Fuckery, Yeah That Again, do you ever just cry, pls don't judge me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 10:24:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15459276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proudspires/pseuds/proudspires
Summary: Guzma's demons persist in haunting him.





	I Found

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Thank you for bearing with me in this time fuckery canon I've been playing around with. Hopefully you enjoy a little angst and sadness (it gets happy I promise!). Any and all feedback is appreciated!

Five days. Kalei’ah was home for _five days_ before she told him she’d be leaving. She had been completely out of his reach for weeks, and now she was leaving again, after giving him five days of her time.

The feeling was complicated. There was a rational part of Guzma’s brain that was aware she wasn’t doing it to hurt him - it was her job. She was the retired First Alolan Champion, or whathefuckever, and that meant she had shit to do. She _loved_ pokemon. She made it her life to protect them, and that was admirable.

Rather, he was _trying_ to admire it.

It was harder to do when he was having a bad week. And he didn’t have bad days, he had bad weeks - where getting out of bed in the morning was a crippling venture, where showing up to Hala’s was near-impossible when his limbs felt like lead. He tried to drink less, which meant that sometimes he slept less, which meant --

Well, anyway.

She brought it up so casually, too, as if she wasn’t just up and leaving him for another couple of weeks at a time. She was cutting up fruit to go and eat out on the deck, and he was thinking about how they’d become that couple that ate fruit out on a deck together, when she said through half a bite, “Oh! I have to head out again on Monday to Aurelia.”

Guzma’s hands were covered in soapy water. He thought, _wow, I never thought I’d be doin’ the fuckin’ dishes when someone stomped on my heart._

“What?” he asked instead. He was slowly working through the things that Hala had taught him. Breathing was an important one. When he got angry, breathing was usually the first thing he forgot about -- and it was amazing the effects a good big breath could have on you. Inhaling, he stared at the dishes in the sink and said, “You just barely got back.”

“Well, I know,” Kalei’ah replied. Her voice was light. Infuriatingly casual. “But I don’t really have a choice. I’m trekking out with the rangers to check on some hot spots. It’s a whole big thing.”

“Isn’t it _always_ gonna be a whole big thing?” He pulled his hands out of the sink and let the water drain, drying off his hands and beginning to stack plates in the cupboard. Stacking plates was good, he thought. Methodical. Rhythmic. Cathartic.

Kalei’ah paused. He could only see a blurry caricature of her through the corners of his vision, but he could sense her confusion rolling off of her in waves. After a moment of silence, she shrugged. She was, of course, completely oblivious to the notion that her single, casual gesture of this moment was both humiliating and dismissive to his brain, which was already looking for something to be wrong.

After another moment of him not looking at her, Kale said, “I guess, but -- it’s important. My work is important to me.”

“Yeah.” He closed the cupboard more forcefully than he intended. He was trying hard to make himself breathe, but instead he was just hearing it over and over in his head. _My work is important to me. More important than you, everything’s more important than you, didn’t you think this through? Didn’t you realize you were just a fill-in?_

His skull felt like it was rattling around in his head. He leaned against the counter for a moment, closing his eyes. 

She was frowning now; he could hear it when she said, “G.”

“I’m just sayin’,” he continued, opening his eyes but staring at the backsplash of her kitchen instead of looking at her, even when she stepped closer to him, “it’s _always_ gonna be a big thing, so like - when’s it gonna stop, you know?”

“So you slam a cupboard?” Kalei’ah’s voice was sickeningly even. “Don’t slam things around in the house. Just talk to me.”

“You’re not listenin’ to me,” Guzma snapped. “I am tryin’ to talk to you.”

“You can do it without banging a cupboard.”

“Would you drop the fuckin’ cupboard?”

He’d tossed the glass he’d been going to put away back into the sink. He could feel it - the toxic cocktail of anxiety and frustration, rising up inside of him, coating his insides. Kalei’ah had gone quiet. It wasn’t the sad sort of quiet, it was the _stewing_ kind of quiet that she got when she was upset. She had an arm crossed over her chest, her thumb nail pressing against her lower lip as she worked through whatever it was his little outburst had given her.

Guzma took in a breath. He could see a crescent moon indentation on her lip from her nail. He reached for her wrist, saying, “Come on, don’t--”

Instinctively, Kalei’ah jerked her wrist away before he could touch her and said, shortly, “Please don’t.”

The sentence was, in itself, the most cordial way to tell him to fuck off. There was a different kind of frustration in him now, the kind that came with the sinking feeling of disappointment. It was perfectly okay for him to be upset about her leaving -- but in the fashion of his true nature, it had been taken too far.

_You fucked up again._

Guzma struggled to sort through the feelings. He didn’t have much time for recovery from the recoil before Kalei’ah began, “My job is _important_ to me. It’s not fair of you to ask me to choose between you and it.” She slid plastic wrap over the bowl of fruit, putting it in the fridge, signaling that whatever time they were going to spend being That Couple That Ate Fruit On The Deck was postponed, until further notice. 

A part of him said, _just apologize._ Instead, he said, “I ain’t askin’ you to choose, just - like, what the fuck, Kale? Why’ve you gotta be so busy all the time?” He took a step forward, desperate for her to just look at him, just one fucking time, _just don’t keep looking away from me like that, I hate it I hate it I hate --_

“I don’t _have_ to be,” Kalei’ah replied. Her voice had gone brittle. “It’s just my fucking _job,_ everybody has a _job-”_

“What, so you don’t wanna be here?” _With me?_ “You just want me sittin’ around on my ass all the fuckin’ time, waitin’ on you?” _Suffocating._ He felt it. He was so angry -- _no,_ a voice corrected, _not angry. Humiliated. Hurt._ “Just sittin’ around like some fuckin’ idiot for you?”

“G, stop --”

“You probably like it like that.” The poison was up his throat, in his mouth, spilling out. He felt uncomfortably hot, his head loud, and the words were coming fast now. “You probably like me like this, pining after you all the fuckin’ time. Ha-ha, Guzma’s a big fuckin’ laugh. Don’t you?”

Kalei’ah’s gaze flashed up to meet his, finally. Her posture had stiffened; where her expression had been wiped clean to maintain a meticulous neutrality, there now bloomed a vivid indentation of hurt. Someone might as well have put a flashing neon sign over her head that said _**GIRL CRUSHED**_.

Still, the insecurities bubbled out, the anger too fast for him to stop. “Yeah, see? I knew it. You’d hate it if I wasn’t just waitin’ around to be the punchline of a big joke.”

“That’s not true.” When Kale finally spoke, her voice wobbled. “That’s not true, you know it-”

“No?” he challenged. “Well it sure doesn’t fuckin’ feel any different, Kale.”

She shook her head. “Stop, okay? Just -- stop, and listen to me--”

“Or _what?”_ He felt the words snapping between his teeth. “Or what, Kale? You’re going to fuckin’ leave again? You were goin’ to do that anyway.”

His vision was swimming, clouded with the anger, the humiliation, the hurt. He didn’t want her to leave again. Every time she left felt like the first and last time he was ever going to see her again. But instead of just saying that, instead of just telling her that sometimes she was gone and he missed her so fucking much it hurt in the cavity of his chest, he was doing this.

Guzma reminded himself to breathe deep. On the inhale, he closed his eyes. On the exhale, he opened them.

She looked small. Like he’d gutted her.

The worst part -- and it always was the worst part, for him - was her eyes. Those big, velvet doe-eyes, which usually looked at him with anything from exasperated affection to adoration, were dewy with the threat of oncoming tears. Already, a few dotted her bottom lashes.

His brain went through a rapid succession of thoughts, each more irrational than the last. I did that to her. _What the fuck is wrong with me? I can’t believe I’m such a fuck up._

Saying her name after putting that look on her face felt treasonous. “Baby-”

“Don’t.” Kalei’ah’s voice was barely above a whisper when she cut him off. “Don’t - call me that right now.”

Guzma’s head felt hot, filled with cotton. More than anything, he wanted to reach for her -- but he knew what would happen if he did. He saved them both the trouble by staying exactly where he was.

She sniffed, seeming to break out of the haze of hurt long enough to quickly wipe her eyes and turn away. Guzma watched it, her process; her hands fluttered nervously over the countertop, searching for something to occupy their nervous energy, and when she found nothing she paced away from him. Her nail was back at her lip, tapping absently.

“I’m going for a walk,” she managed out, finally. But while she was finally saying something, it was almost worse than the pervasive silence; her words sent a flare of panic up in him. He only had what, a day and a half more with her before she was supposed to leave again?

“How long?”

“I don’t know. I might go to my mom’s for the night.”

He swallowed. Her earlier look had cut through his anger like a hot knife, but still lingering were the real feelings - the catalysts for his anger. He felt his nails biting into his palms. “Don’t go, Kale.”

“I don’t - want to talk to you right now,” she said, and she sounded so tired. _I did this to her,_ he thought. _I sucked the light out of her like a vampire._

He wondered if anything had ever hurt more than hearing her say _I don’t want to talk to you right now._

“Okay,” he said. It wasn’t. He wanted sliced fruit on the deck during dusk, and the way it felt when she was half-asleep and reached for him in the dark of their bedroom, and to be that fucking sappy bitch that could count and recount the freckles on her nose and cheeks.

The silence stretched between them. Kale was still, staring absently at the floor, before the sound of her Arcanine scratching at the back door startled her out of her reverie and she moved to go and let him in.

She packed an overnight bag without speaking to him. He didn’t know what to do with himself; he lingered awkwardly in the kitchen, unsure of where to put his hands, where to look. He was vaguely aware of her Arcanine curling up at his feet, not-so-subtly seeking attention, but all he could think about was the sound of her bag zipping shut and getting shouldered.

“Kale,” he said, stepping over the arcanine when he saw her zipping up a windbreaker. “Kalei’ah.”

“Yes?”

She didn’t look at him. He hated it when she wouldn’t look at him, and hated it when he saw in her gaze what he’d made her feel. “Kale, I’m sorry.”

Guzma saw her lips press into a thin line. For a brief moment, there was a glimmer of hope, and then she said, “I know, G.”

He felt his throat tighten and he moved toward her, the words coming out of his mouth before he could even process them: “Kale - c’mon, I’m sorry, I… It won’t happen again, ya know? I know - I know I’m a lot, but I’ll… I’m sorry, I’ll --”

_I’ll be better, I’ll be good, please._

The words almost left his mouth. He almost tasted them on his tongue, but he bit them back with his teeth and felt their bones crunch. Dead. He didn’t want that to be this. Those words were a portal that would take him back to a time he wanted to forget.

So instead, Guzma took in a breath, reaching for her, relieved when she didn’t pull away from him and instead let his hands linger on the sides of her arms. The nervous energy supplied his movements despite the exhaustion he felt.

He saw Kalei’ah’s lip tremble; her eyes flickered, and when she spoke, her voice was thick with unshed tears. “I don’t -- you don’t mean that, right now, G.”

“I do,” he insisted. He watched her hands flutter aimlessly before landing on his chest, staying there, but when they did he couldn’t tell if she was trying to be closer to him or put a physical barrier between them.

Kalei’ah replied, “You don’t.” Her hands lifted, as if to leave, and then rested again, warm through his shirt. “You don’t, and - that’s okay, but I can’t accept it so I’m going to go, and I’ll be back in the morning, and -”

“Baby-” Guzma reached up now, cradling her face, feeling the first real tear slip under his thumb against her cheekbone. “You don’t have to go, you don’t have to-”

“And - I’ll be back in the morning, and you can have time to - to figure out what you want to say that you mean.”

He desperately wanted her to stay. He thought, if she would just stay, everything would be fine. “Those things I said, I don’t believe them. I mean it. I don’t, I know you’re not-”

“But you do, G,” Kalei’ah said, more firm now even as she pulled away from him, wiping the streaks from her face and sniffing. “You do believe them - maybe not about me, specifically, but in some capacity you think you’re -- you’re waiting for me to make a joke out of you because that’s what you’re afraid of, and I just…” She took in a shaky breath. Reaching, she took his hands, cradled them between hers. “I just want you to have the time to work through it. I’m just - you know, I’ll be right down the road, and I’ll be back in the morning, and…”

It felt a little like a joke. They’d gotten into arguments before, but for the most part -- 

Well, that wasn’t true. They’d had plenty of conflict before, when his work with Hala was still early in, when he was still working through things. He was still working through those things, just better than before. Didn’t that count for anything?

“And?” he managed out, the sharp anxiety in his chest dulling to a pounding ache. Or was that his heart, rattling against his rib cage, desperate to get free?

“And I care about you,” she whispered, “so much that it hurts sometimes.”

Guzma’s hands dropped back to his side. Kalei’ah almost looked relieved; her hands reached up and cupped his face, and she pressed their lips together, the taste of her somehow desperate and soft all at the same time.

He felt numb when she walked out the door, leaving him alone with the stifling quiet of dusk on the porch. He stayed out there for about an hour, thinking maybe he’d see her walking back, until he felt the nape of his neck prickling from the humidity. His Golisopod, nestled deep in the bushes around the front of the house in an attempt to cool itself off, watched him inquisitively until he went back inside.

She wasn’t coming back that night. He knew that; of all the people in his life, Kalei’ah had been one of the few who had always kept her word, whether he liked it or not, so he ended up crawling into the very empty bed and trying to sleep.

All he could think about was how alone he was. He wanted to hit something. The headboard, the wall, himself. The itching urge to grab fistfuls of his hair until the painful prickling made him feel whole again was almost overwhelming; he forced himself into fitful sleep instead, waking up feeling quieter but no less uneasy.

In the morning, he left early for Hala’s, hopeful that he would miss Kalei’ah’s return -- it would be more comfortable if he could just come home and she would be there.

He let out a breath of relief when he saw her through the front window, scrubbing the dining table with those ridiculous yellow gloves on. The front door was wide open -- presumably, to avoid the smell of cleaning solution clouding up the house -- and her Ninetales was draped miserably across the doorway. He stepped over her carefully on his way in, clearing his throat.

“Hey,” he said. He stood in the doorway of the kitchen, not moving, waiting like a vampire to be invited in. Kalei’ah looked up from where she’d been cleaning, smiling a little. It wasn’t a lot, but what was there was genuine. Guzma had been bracing himself for something; vitriol, chilliness, anything but this.

“Hi, baby,” she greeted, fanning her face. Little wisps of her hair stuck to her face, warm from the day’s heat. “How was Hala’s?”

He felt uncomfortable. He shifted from foot to foot before he stepped into the kitchen and set his bag on the counter, glancing back at her.

Eventually, he managed out, “Hot,” before he turned to really look at her. He immediately regretted it, because her brows had pulled together, her expression an effective mixture of sadness and apology and softness. _How does she do that?_ He wondered. _How does she let me know exactly what she’s feeling with just one look?_

Kalei’ah closed the distance between them, wedging herself between his body and the counter so that she could sit up on it. He let her hands take his. When she put his hands on each side of her face, he instinctively ran his thumbs over the curves of her cheekbones.

“We have to talk about what happened,” she murmured, her hands sliding from his own to his wrists, resting there. He took in a deep breath.

“We could also pretend it never happened.”

“G,” and her voice was painfully gentled, softening the blow of her following words, “I think you need to go back to seeing Hala more than twice a week.”

Sucker-punched. Guzma felt his face screw up in rejection of that idea. That felt like regression. It felt like a step backwards. It felt like -- 

_Failure._

“I’m not _crazy,”_ he protested. Every instinct in him was screaming to be offended, but tempering it was the way she was looking at him. He felt her intake of breath, slow, like she was preparing herself. Or maybe she had already done that; he wasn’t sure.

She said, “I know you aren’t.” Her hand squeezed his wrist reassuringly. “Going to see Hala more than twice a week doesn’t mean you’re crazy, and it doesn’t take away from the progress you’re making either. You are making progress,” she added seriously, tilting her head so that he had to meet her gaze again. “You said some really - worrying things last night, and I’m not really equipped to help you the way that you need.”

“‘Equipped to help me’? Fuckin’ - I’m not some weak-ass deep-dive experiment-”

“Guzma.” Kale’s voice was a little desperate now. “You don’t have to be perfect. I’m not expecting perfection. But -- I need to be a source of help and support to you, and that means telling you when I think you need to outsource a little. Getting help from someone who _can help you_ isn’t a sign of weakness.” His hands had fallen away from cradling her face, and her own came up to rest on his chest; her voice had broken a little. He exhaled, sharp and uncomfortable, and rested his forehead against hers. He was so relieved when she didn’t pull away.

“You’re not weak,” she told him, softer than ever, so quiet he almost didn’t hear her. “You’re strong -- stronger than you should have to be and that makes it so much harder to accept help from other people, I know, but -- please, baby. At least think about it.”

Guzma didn’t need to think about it. He already knew he didn’t want to. It would feel like two steps forward, three steps back, and he wasn’t very much interested in that. He sucked his teeth, frustrated, and pulled back.

“I’ll think about it,” he acquiesced reluctantly, “for you.”

Kalei’ah’s brows smoothed in something close to relief. She said, “Not for me. For you,” and poked a finger lightly into his chest before she slid off of the counter and hugged him, tight. With her face buried against his chest, and her body tucked against him, he could almost feel normal again.

She must have sensed his desire to feel normal, because after that, it would have taken a concerted effort to not feel some kind of normalcy. He was grateful for her. She complained about the heat, insisted they eat fruit in the sun room (it wasn’t the deck, but it was a little hot on the deck anyway, with the sun setting), then finished deep-cleaning the kitchen with his help. He tried to apologize once or twice, and each time she just kissed him. He had the distinct feeling she was trying to tell him to let it go, that she knew he would keep punishing himself for it until she said the magic words _(I forgive you)_ , but this was different. She was saying, _I know you’re working on it and that’s all I need_ without ever saying it at all.

When night came, they curled up in the not-so-empty bed. The covers were kicked down to their feet and Kale had stripped down to just one of his t-shirts, which hung loose and baggy on her body. Once she had settled into bed, he instantly pressed closer to her, burying his face in her hair.

“I didn’t think I had a reason,” she murmured absently after a moment. When Guzma pulled back, her eyes were closed, and he thought maybe she was half-sleep-talking. But her lashes fluttered a little, eyes opening and fixing on his chest.

“What?”

“For - why I’ve got to keep busy all the time.” She took in a little breath, and it trembled in her lungs like a bird. He reached up and squeezed her shoulder. She felt heavy against him. She tucked her cheek against his chest, making herself breathe out.

“Back then, I thought -- you know, it’s just what kids do. You go out and you try to become the Champion, or whatever.” Kalei’ah swallowed. “But a part of me always believed - like _really thought_ \- that maybe if I did something like that, if I was the Champion, my dad would see it in the news or whatever and he’d finally… you know, like -- want me.”

Guzma’s chest felt tight. His hand stilled on her shoulder. She shrugged weakly, her eyes absent, watching the flickering of the ceiling fan on the wall.

“It was stupid,” she murmured after a moment. “I was stupid. It took my whole life to figure out that there was nothing in this world that was going to make me good enough to bring him back to us. And by then, I was already in the business of keeping busy to keep my mind off of it, so…”

The idea to him was nauseating; that there was someone out there who’d just left her, who hadn’t even stuck around to see what kind of person she’d become.

“Hey.” His voice felt thick. _Don’t be a bitch._ “You mean, there was nothin’ that was gonna lower you down to his level. Whoever he was, the guy was a -- he was a fuckin’ dumbass, because you handed me my ass a number of times as a “stupid kid”, and --”

It was important to him that Kalei’ah knew how special she was. To him. To the world. In general.

“And anyone who couldn’t see that is missing out,” Guzma finished lamely. “Okay?”

Kalei’ah turned her head so that her chin was on his chest and she could look at him. Her gaze searched his for a moment, before she scooted forward just enough to kiss him. Without much ceremony, she said, “I love you.”

The words made his breath stutter; suddenly, his brain was racing. Was he ready to say that back? He’d just decided to go and see Hala more, was he really qualified to be saying whether he loved someone or not? Did he know if he loved Kalei’ah?

Sensing his unease, she laughed and said, “You don’t have to say it back, G.”

His lips pressed into a line. “You’re not gonna be mad if I don’t know?”

She shook her head and yawned. Reaching across his abdomen, she interlaced their fingers together and made a soft, sleepy sound. He felt the tickle of her eyelashes when her eyes closed again.

“I just wanted to let you know,” she murmured. Drowsiness made her voice warm, lulling him. “Life’s too short to not tell people how you feel about them once you’ve found them.”


End file.
